The Branding Power of Pinterest

The Branding Power of Pinterest

On November 14, 2012, Pinterest announced the new arrival of business accounts opening the door for marketers and brands to officially distribute content in unique and creative ways.

Unlike personal accounts, Pinterest allows businesses to add likes back to their website. Business accounts also have the option to embed Pinterest buttons on their pages to facilitate easy pinning.

Pinterest users can visually bookmark content from the web in a simple and streamlined fashion. Users can browse millions of images and pin inspiring photos and other web content. Like a corkboard in your kitchen, you can pin photos to boards you create. If you are given the correct permissions you can also pin to someone else's board. The idea of pinning is what makes Pinterest so social and addicting.

In fact, Pinterest now has 20 million users and is one of the fasted growing social media sites of all time. People pin everything from their favourite hairstyles to their best chocolate chip cookie recipes.

With the addition of business accounts Pinterset is a no-brainer for brands and marketers looking to inspire customers and enhance the social shopping experience. This post will show you how to leverage Pinterest and its massive audience, for your business and marketing campaigns.

Who's using Pinterest?

Take a look at the infographic below that demonstrates the make-up, reach and prevalence of this platform:

How can businesses benefit from Pinterest?

With so many users, how do you connect with prospective customers in an enjoyable yet effective way? One cannot expect that by posting all the products you sell or blog posts you've written that you'll catch the attention of your ideal audience. The community aspect of Pinterset demands one to look outside their brand guidelines. Think outside the marketing box.

Pinterest has posted some illuminating case studies that showcase how brands have successfully harnessed the platform for their own marketing goals.

Pinterest suggests that business' post unique and personable content on a variety of boards, repin and follow similar boards of interest and engage customers with call to action pins to flourish in the Pinterest community.

How are other brands using Pinterest?

Volvo created a contest on Pinterest where fans collect and tag photos depicting their dream joyride. See the board

Kotex designed and delivered personalized gifts to 50 influential Pinterest users inspired by the pins they had shared on their boards. Almost 100% of the selected users pinned their gifts on Pinterest as well as shared them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This unique Pinterest campaign delivered almost 700,000 impressions for Kotex. You can get more information about the campaign.

Phillips encouraged their fans to pin photos showcasing what makes their home city livable and lovable. See the board.

Additional benefits of Pinterest for businesses

Backlinks: each of your pins will contain a backlink to your site. Unlike most social media sites Pinterest does not add the rel=nofollow tag to your links. This means you get full SEO credit for links pointing from Pinterest to your site in addition to the click traffic.

Social sharing: Pinterest is closely connected to Facebook. This allows users to automatically post new pins to their Facebook wall. Doubling the exposure of your pins. Also, users have the option to share pins via Twitter and email in addition to Facebook to further enhance the reach of your pins.

Lead Generation: Pinterest is one of the most valuable emerging platforms that can be used to drive highly qualified customers to your site or service. Make your content visually appealing and your existing customers and fans will share it. This will expand your visibility through social media recommendations, which we all know refer some of the highest converting customers.

The Branding Power of Pinterest

On November 14, 2012, Pinterest announced the new arrival of business accounts opening the door for marketers and brands to officially distribute content in unique and creative ways. Unlike personal accounts, Pinterest allows businesses to add likes back to their we